


polished to perfection

by hopiewopie



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29995191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopiewopie/pseuds/hopiewopie
Summary: 5up feels different, his friends notice. Chaos ensues.if any of the people used in this fanfic express discomfort with being written into a fiction of this type, i will take it down without hesitation.
Relationships: 5up & Apollo | Dumbdog, 5up & Dakotaz | DK (Video Blogging RPF), 5up & Hafu (Video Blogging RPF), 5up & Janet | xChocobars, 5up & Josh Ellum, 5up & KojisRevenge, 5up & Peter Park | PeterParkTV, 5up & Steven Suptic





	polished to perfection

5up felt wrong. In every way someone could feel wrong. He felt different, weird, like he wasn’t normal. But he was, he had to be. But he shouldn’t be this way. He felt like he needed to be perfect, it was a standard he had set for himself after so many years of praise, and messing up wasn’t supposed to be an option. It wasn’t an option. 

Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t as if the people around him did something. They would praise him, question what he  _ wasn’t _ good at, call him perfect. 

He wasn’t.

Everytime someone asked what he was bad at, it felt like they were fishing for something to dislike him for. He was supposed to be perfect, because that’s what they wanted, that’s what everyone wanted. He was naturally gifted, is what they said. Why didn’t he feel like he was? They wouldn’t lie to him, they were his friends. 

_ Friends don’t lie. _

He would open his friends’ chat, and stumble across so many hateful messages. Some would call him a psychopath, saying that how he acted was harmful and that he was a bad person, others would say that wasn’t supposed to act so salty and that he was acting like a child crying over a video game. Maybe he was both. 

Everyone would always shame him for his lack of expression, body language, or just general emotion. With his friends he felt joy, or at least that’s what he thought. Maybe he was only allowed to feel joy, not anything else. So why didn’t he ever feel anything? Maybe he did feel something, maybe he just didn’t realise it. But that didn’t matter, because he was supposed to be perfect. 

He was confused, why did everyone hate him for his lack of emotion? Wasn’t that a part of being perfect, being able to handle situations without throwing your heart into it? When he did try to show emotion they would shrug him off, so he just settled for not showing it. But then they called him weird, they said he didn’t care, that he was selfish. 

Was he really that selfish? He didn’t mean to.

Death threats were common, he knew that would happen when he decided to become a streamer. He didn’t think he’d become those obsessed with reading through it, though. But he knew that he deserved to feel hurt by the messages that he would read, he knew he deserved the ache in his heart that came with. 

After a while, sleeping got harder and harder, so he had taken up the habit of banging his head against the wall until he passed out, it usually only took around four tries, he was weak. 

It felt nice to not have to obsess over how he looked in the mornings, it was one of the times he was happy he didn’t use facecam. He didn’t have to think about people seeing him, and worrying about him. 

Oh, how he hated their constant worrying.

He hated when Hafu or Dk would pester him about how distant he was apparently becoming, he hated how Apollo would disagree less and less with him on the trivial topics that they would come up with, he hated how Steve’s jokes surrounding him got softer, as if polished not to hurt him, he hated how Janet had, after a while, stopped putting suspicion on him when they played Among Us, he hated how Koji and Ellum had stopped laughing at him when he’d mess up their names and instead talk to him as if he was a toddler, he hated how Peter stopped making sexual jokes around him. He wasn’t a child, he could handle those types of jokes. Sure, he was a little younger then everyone else, but he was mature enough to deal with his problems alone. 

They treated him as if he was as fragile as a piece of glass, like he would break at any moment if they made one wrong move. He hated it so much, he felt guilty. As if he ruined the fun because he was selfish enough to get upset, and to show it. He did ruin the fun. He always did. 

God, why couldn’t he just be as perfect as everyone said he was?

  
  
  
  


Something was wrong with 5up.

They first noticed it when he started taking more and more breaks, and started to distance himself from them, and anyone else he spoke to, off stream. When he did talk to them, he seemed over excited, the kind that almost seemed fake, and even then he would seem distracted and as if he was trying to craft each word with such care he usually didn’t have to think of. 

When playing games, it felt as if his natural instincts were off, and that everytime he got something wrong or messed up he would go quieter until, eventually, he said he was tired, and left. 

Everytime they would ask, he would come up with a perfectly thought out excuse, one that seemed too perfect to be real, one that they could in no way counter. They tried their best to accustom how they acted to what he needed, but with no communication as to what the problem was, it was so hard. 

With everyday, he seemed more and more tired, the underlying exhaustion in his voice so very obvious to those who knew him well. But he was a good liar. And they hated it, because it prevented him from giving anything up. 

They just wanted to help, why wouldn’t he let them help?

Guilt seeped through their veins at the thought, they just wanted to help. Did he not trust them enough for this? They missed him, the strong-willed, socially active, ray of sunshine version of him. 

Hafu missed him. He was always like a little brother to her, their constant bickering and disagreeing, their rivalry, it just made her happy. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t become a little protective over him over the course of their friendship, but it wasn’t something she would admit to his face, the little bastard would just take it and run with it. The old him would, at least.

Dk was worried. A lot more then he’d like to admit, actually. It felt as though 5up was rejecting every bit of affection, praise or care he recieved, and embracing everything hurtful that was said to him. His lack of energy was so noticeable, and his excitement was so fake it caused a sudden ache in his heart everytime he’d speak. He wanted to help him, but no matter how much he tried to reach out, nothing worked. 

No matter how much he would hate to admit it, Apollo was extremely scared as to what was happening to his friend. Sure, the two had differing opinions about the silliest of things, and they argued about said things from time to time, but that didn’t mean Apollo didn’t care for the younger. And when he had begun to act distant, less enthusiastic, and lacking energy to disagree, obviously Apollo was going to worry.

Janet lacked the focus to complete daily chores, or to focus on her friends, all because she was so fixated on what was happening with 5up. She was confused and, admittedly, quite guilty that she couldn’t do anything to help him. She would have a hard time focusing on her streams, or games, whenever she would hear his voice. He just sounded so broken, and she wasn’t sure how to do to help.

Steve was, quite frankly, miserable. 5up was someone he cared for, someone he felt an urge to protect. Although they were rare, Steve cherished the moments where 5up would act innocent, in other peoples’ eyes, childish. Steve didn’t think so. He admired how 5up was able to let out his opinion and act carefree, and he knew the others admired it too. It upset him when that spark seemed to disappear.

Peter felt quilty. Everytime he would hear 5up’s voice, he could feel his heart sting painfully, like a thread connected to his heart was being snapped. The lack of confidence, and the lack of stability in 5up’s tone was concerning. Peter wondered if it had something to do with him, if he did something to make 5up act like this. His heart ached at the possibility.

Ellum pondered his options. Why 5up was acting so differently, he had no idea. But he wanted to know, and he wanted to be able to help. He missed him, regardless of how mean 5up had a tendency to be to him. It was all in good fun, after all, and he enjoyed 5up’s sass towards him. That enjoyment slipped away, as if 5up had lost every mean bone in his body out of nowhere, and Ellum didn’t like it one bit. 

Koji was attempting to keep his worry away, telling himself to trust 5up and the fact that he was mature enough to tell them what was wrong if he needed it. At first it had been funny how much 5up confused him and Ellum, but eventually it grew more and more to the point of it almost seeming intentional. That, unfortunately, didn’t really help keep the concern from threatening to creep into his heart. 

  
  
  
  


Five reluctantly pressed on the discord call, not ready to face the morning lobby. He hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and he was too physically exhausted to knock himself out like he usually would’ve done, so now he just had to wait until he passed out. 

The lobby consisted of himself, Hafu, Dk, Steve, Apollo, Scott, Ellum, Koji, Janet and Plushys. He knew all of them quite well, so he was scared as to how they would act towards him being so tired. He knew it would show, and the thought of questions terrified him. He hoped they would just accept his excuse of having run out of both tea and coffee, although neither was actually true. 

He chose not to say anything in the call, simply listening to them chat amongst themselves. “5up?” Kimi’s voice piped up, to which the male almost jumped at the sound of. The sudden silence was uncomfortable, making his heart race just a little.

“Hi,” he responded, his voice almost cracking as he attempted to blink away the tiredness, not that any of them would see. 

“Dude, where have you been?” Hafu half-shouted at him, and it sounded loud. Way louder then she probably intended for it to sound. It was overwhelming, but 5up shrugged off the feeling, or tried to at least. “You’re twenty minutes late,” she said again, calmer, but still overly loud. He turned down the audio just a little. 

He looked over at the time in the corner of his screen, noticing that he was in fact twenty minutes late. “Oh,” he responded, and it felt as if the tension in the voice chat rose at that. “Sorry, I didn’t notice.” 

She sighed, running a hand through her hair. She had been a little worried, it was unlike him not to say anything if he would miss out on a lobby. “It’s fine, you’re here now. Just join the game, the code is up in general,” she responded finally, her voice a lot more gentle then before. She could hear the underlying exhaustion in his tone, but she chose not to comment on it, not wanting to set him off so early on, and live.the drained softness in his tone.

The brunette felt the guilt seep through his veins, as if it was poison attempting to crawl its way into his heart. He was so stupid, he should’ve just skipped out on the day instead of wasting everyone’s time. Regardless, he mumbled a soft “Okay,” before pulling up the mod client for Among Us. 

The deafening silence filled his mind, he felt as if they were judging him for being late. He could hear the clock ticking in the background despite having his headphones on, and suddenly he felt his mouse swirling shakily over to the leave call button, when finally someone spoke up. “Someone in my chat just said ‘5up and GeorgeNotFound would get along, they both absolutely  _ love  _ sleeping in.’” 

It was Steve.

5up felt relief wash over him as light chatter began to form in the voice chat once again, and he’d even managed to let out a soft, quiet chuckle at some of Steve and Dk’s dumb, witty jokes. He was glad they didn’t ask why he was late, he didn’t want to have to come up with an excuse. 

Not even an hour passed, and he had passed out on his chair.

  
  
  
  


“5up, are you back?” Hafu asked, seeing as he was unmuted and undeafened. They had just taken a two minute break and Hafu was confirming everyone was back before starting another round. 

Her question recieved no response until finally Janet piped up, “Hey, a lot of people in my chat are saying 5up never started stream,” she stated curiously. 

Hafu’s immediate first thought was to check his channel, where she came to the conclusion that he had indeed never started stream. “Yeah, it looks like he didn’t,” she said worriedly. “And he’s undefeaned and not responding.”

“He probably fell asleep, he’s pretty obviously exhausted, it would take an idiot not to realise that,” Kimi concluded, Janet humming in agreement. “Just server mute and deafen him, we can find someone to fill for him. He obviously needs all the rest he can get considering he managed to fall asleep in front of a computer screen.”

“I agree,” Apollo said with a sigh. “We should get a fill. Today’s obviously not his day. He showed up twenty minutes late and didn’t even realise, he forgot to turn on his fucking stream, he’s barely been able to stay focused during meetings and he can’t pay attention during rounds, even as impostor. We should give him time to rest, he probably just didn’t sleep well last night.”

Hafu nodded to herself and her stream, going to discord to deafen and mute him. She then immediately switched her dms over to her DMs with Skadj, who they had agreed would be the fill for today in case anyone would need to leave early. She quickly typed out an explanation for what happened, and a response was as quick as ever. “Skadj is coming,” she said to her friends.

Her thoughts couldn’t seem to stop trailing back to 5up for the rest of the day. 

  
  
  
  


5up was, once again, twenty minutes late. But this time it didn’t seem like he would be showing up. Admittedly, no one in the lobby had spoken to him since he apparently fell asleep the day before, and he was still in the voice chat, which was only slightly worrying. They came to the conclusion that he probably just didn’t realise he was still in the voice chat and that he had gone on with his day. He most likely forgot to get Hafu to find a fill. Yeah, that was the only logical conclusion.

The lobby that day was really only people that played with them frequently, the lobby ended up being Hafu herself, Apollo, Peter, Dk, Steve, Janet, Koji, Ellum, Tina, and now Kris, who was replacing 5up. (Although admittedly he was reluctant about it, not wanting to replace the brunette in case he was just late.)

Turns out he wasn’t planning on showing up that day. And they would all be lying if they said they weren’t overly concerned for him. Although he did end up leaving the call half an hour into the games, which gave them some sign he was okay, and helped lift the spirits in the lobby even if just slightly.

Steve sighed to himself as he pressed on the voice channel, he was rarely this fixated on something. But he and the other regulars had decided they had to get to the bottom of it. It was just too odd, how 5up had been acting for the past weeks. “Hey Steve,” Janet greeted when he joined, smiling to herself a little to reassure herself. (Not that anyone else would see it.)

“So uhh,” Steve began, filling in the awkward silence that filled after he had finished greeting everyone. “What do you suppose we do, exactly? We’ve already asked him if he’s okay multiple times and he’s said he is every time.” 

Apollo sighed, frowning slightly. “I think we should confront him straight up,” he stated briskly. “It’s obvious something’s up with him, we need to let him know that we’re aware of it, and that he can always talk to us.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Koji piped in hesitantly. “It might set him off, and from what we’ve seen so far he’s very quick to deny that anything is amiss. I think we should make him feel comfortable around us first, and confronting him about this might not be the best approach for that.”

Peter hummed. “I agree with Koji. It’s best if we find out where his boundaries lie when it comes to us first, and then we can confront.”

“Okay, well, what do you suppose we do to find that out, Peter?” Hafu butt in curiously, the same tone in her voice as when she would be trying to figure out who the Impostor was during Among Us.

“Um,” Janet cut in, “We could play a game with only us that requires facecam. We’ve all seen his face, afterall, and it could help ease our worry if we can see that he looks healthy. If he doesn’t look okay, we’ll have a reason to start conversation about it.”

“Who knew you knew how to use your brain, Janet,” Dk said rudely, an obvious attempt at lightening the mood slightly.

“Oh, shut up, Dk,” Janet huffed, crossing her arms and pouting. “You’re so annoying!”

Dk laughed at her comment, and he could feel how the mood was lifted slightly, it felt just a little more bearable. “Okay, well what games can we play through discord that require facecam?” Ellum asked, a small chuckle threatening to escape his lips at Janet and Dk’s silly banter. 

"We could say that we're gonna watch a movie together and we want to be able to see everyone's face?" Koji suggested swiftly.

"That's a good idea! It would mostly only make sense if it was a horror movie, though," Apollo added with a sound of acknowledgement.

"I can agree with that," Hafu stated. "When do we do it?" she then asked, wanting to make sure everything was completely ready.

"We can do it tonight," Steve said, a proposition. "Although that would mean Ellum and Koji would have to stay up late."

"I don't mind," Ellum clarified with a lighthearted chuckle. "My sleep schedule isn't exactly ideal either way."

"And I can manage," Koji said honestly. 

Hafu nodded to herself. "Okay, then I'll add 5up to the voice chat and we'll address him about it, if no one has any objections to that?" The silence that followed after her sentence was telling, and Hafu added 5up to the voice chat. 

After around ten minutes of waiting, the sound of someone joining the call echoed throughout. "5up!" Dk practically shouted, and 5up flinched at the loud noise, lowering the audio on his computer quickly.

"Hi," he responded, voice soft and quieter than usual. "What are you guys doing?" he then asked, curiosity only slightly laced in his voice. 

"We were planning to watch a horror movie together with facecam and we wanted to invite you to join," Koji stated nonchalantly. 

5up swallowed thickly, touching his forehead at the mention of facecam, flinching from the pain that came with it. "Uhm, sure," he agreed, to which the group cheered excitedly. "But I need to set up my camera first!" he quickly excused.

That was a lie, Apollo figured. 5up wasn't one for messing up things as simple as his setup, and since he'd used it awhile back for his mafia games, it felt unrealistic that he would've gotten rid of it since then. He chose not to comment on it.

He was right, though, 5up was not setting up his camera. Instead he was fixing his hair so that his friends would be unable to see the very noticeable marks on his face, as well as putting on an oversized hoodie to hide his arms, seeing as he didn't want them to discover what tragedies lie there, as well as him not wanting them to question his body weight. He quickly pulled the hood over his head and turned off the light in his room, not wanting them to question the mess in there.

He pulled his bare, blanket covered legs up to his chest, and hesitantly pressed on his camera, quickly unmuting. He was greeted with the faces of all his friends, even Apollo, who rarely showed his face. "Hi," he murmured once again, this time even quieter. He suddenly felt increasingly self conscious about showing his face to his friends, despite all of them having seen it before.

His cheeks heated slightly when he felt people staring through the screen, no one responding to him. He grew more uncomfortable with the silence the longer it went on. "Okay," Hafu finally cut in, she most likely noticed how uncomfortable he looked. He cursed himself for showing it, he used to be so good at masking his emotions. "We'll be watching Hereditary," she said with a small smile right before turning on screen share.

  
  
  
  


5up hadn't so much as flinched the entire time, and they were already halfway through the movie. Everyone else had at least shown signs of actually paying attention to the movie, but 5up hadn't looked away from the screen the entire time, so they had nothing to go off of. Until, finally, after almost an hour of looking liveless, he tilted his head slightly, causing some of his hair to move off his forehead.

Hafu swallowed, pausing the movie. "5up," she said gently, not missing the way he violently flinched at the sound of his name. He really wasn't paying attention. No one in the voice chat questioned her pausing the movie, assuming that something had happened. "What's that on your forehead?"

The brunette froze, face pale and expression visibly nervous.  _ Lie _ . His brain was screaming at him to lie, so he did. "I was walking Suji and I tripped," he claimed, attempting to calm the rapidly growing panic that was rising in his chest. 

"5up, that doesn't look like something that you would get from falling once,” Apollo sighed, pulling himself closer to his desk. 

5up’s breath began to speed up slightly, despite his constant attempts at keeping his composure. No. He didn’t want this, they were asking too many questions. He was fine, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Yeah, it wasn’t a big deal. “It’s not that big of a deal,” he forced out in one breath. “I just couldn’t fall asleep-”

“What the fuck?” he was cut off by Hafu. He looked up from where he was looking and at his friends, who were staring at the screen. Hafu’s face was pale, filled with worry and misery, and 5up’s heart practically shattered on the spot. They all looked broken with this news, and suddenly he just wanted to sink into his chair and disappear. Why did he have to say anything? He could’ve avoided worrying them had he just not agreed to use facecam. God, he was so stupid. And now he had upset them. He quickly turned his camera off, not wanting to set off any more alarms.

“5up, how long have you been doing that to fall asleep?” Peter asked, his voice gentle. He was scared to hurt him, the brunette could tell.  _ He hated it. He's not weak, he doesn't need them to be worried about him _ .

"It doesn't matter," 5up said with a sharp exhale.

"Yes, it does," Steve responded unreasonably quickly. 

"Like three months," the soft-spoken man responded, voice small, cracking slightly at the end of his sentence. "But it helps, so it's fine," he quickly added in one breath.

"It's not fine!" Hafu practically shouted, causing everyone in the call to flinch slightly. "Five, that's not okay. That's self harm, you're hurting yourself."

"It helps," he mumbled. Why couldn't they just understand? It worked, they should just leave him alone. He didn't want this, he was mature enough to take care of himself, yet here they were, babying him. "I'm leaving," Five said with a soft breath, the sound of someone leaving playing before anyone could object.

No one knew how to respond, how to help. They knew something was wrong, but they didn't think it reached this extent. "Let's go to Arizona," Hafu concluded, finally, sincerity laced in her voice.

**Author's Note:**

> kinda tempted to make fundy a bad person in this, ill be honest


End file.
